Chronicles of Republic City
by TicTacTurtleduck
Summary: A collection of drabbles and oneshots. All pairings. 04: In a lot of ways, they're really not that different.
1. Lucky

Bolin's never felt so lucky as he does in this moment. He'd always been content, sure—Mako took care of him, Pabu adored him, and he had droves of fans from his pro-bending career. But this, this was something more, and Bolin was going to cherish it.

It'd hit him like a lightning strike, like a vision from the spirits, the first time he saw her in the arena gym. _This is the one_. So he'd strolled over, rescued her from Toza's annoyance. It took years for her to see him the same way, pining over his brother as she did. But airbending seemed to settle something in her spirit, and at Mako and Asami's wedding she stands from her seat at the high table and congratulates them with a wide, open smile.

When Bolin asks her to dance, later, she smiles and takes his hand. By the end of the night they are a couple, and he swears to himself that he'll never ever let go of her. Of course they were never going to be a fairytale pair like his brother and Asami. He's too awkward and clumsy to play Prince Charming, and she's rougher around the edges than any princess has rights to be; but he doesn't care. This was where fate had led them, to nights of noodle-slurping contests and pushing each other into the bay, nights of rowdy family dinners with Mako and Asami and the airbenders, and he's happy. He hopes she is too. But when Asami and Mako announce at one such dinner, six months after the wedding, that Asami is three months pregnant, he decides he wants that for them too. He wants more.

So when Korra suggests they visit the South Pole so she can introduce him to her parents, he readily agrees. Tonraq isn't quite so terrifying once you get used to him, and he turns downright delighted when Bolin takes him and Senna aside as soon as Korra leaves the house to walk Naga, and pulls out the small metal pendant he's bent, inlaid with bits of emerald and sapphire. Senna is over the moon, of course. "My baby's getting married!" she squeals, and crushes him in a hug. Spirits, now he understands how Korra could pick up three children and a grown man in her arms. She didn't get it from her father, that was sure.

Korra comes back into the igloo then, covered in snow and grinning. When she sees her boyfriend being lifted a good foot off the ground, she snorts and says, "Hey, mom, lay off. He's mine."

Senna only smiles as she sets him down and replies, "Well, it's not every day I find a man who likes my cooking, sweetheart. You picked a good one." She puts an arm around her daughter's shoulders and steers her into the kitchen, saying, "Now tell me all about Republic City. How's your airbending training coming along?" She winks at Bolin over her shoulder as she walks away, and he smiles back and tucks the necklace into his parka.

He doesn't find the right time to give it to her until months later, when they're back in Republic and Asami's having her baby. The pale blue silk feels red-hot in his pocket, or like it must be glowing for the whole room to see. He's been carrying it with him ever since the South Pole, but he hasn't told anyone-save Tonraq and Senna-of his plans. Not even Mako. He and his brother are close, they always have been, but this is something he wants to be his and his alone. Mako appears then, with a bright, tired smile on his face, and he and Korra try to beat Ikki and Meelo and six-year-old Rohan into the room, while Jinora and her parents follow behind more sedately (the nurses try to protest at such a large group, but Korra just fixes them with her best "I Am The Avatar" look and they step aside).

Asami is sitting up in bed and holding a yellow bundle in her arms. She looks radiant, and Mako beside her seems as though he might burst from happiness. Korra glances at him and grins, and Bolin has another flash-thought like he did so long ago in the pro-bending gym. _Now. Do it now. _He slips a hand into his pocket discretely, folding the betrothal necklace into his fist. He takes her by the wrists with his free hand and turns her to face him, folding his closed hand over theirs. He opens his fist into her upturned hands, and everyone looks over at them as Korra gasps. He doesn't need to give a heartfelt dedication of his love for her, like Mako did for Asami. She already knows, and besides that they've never been a fairytale couple. But as the airbender kids squeal and Mako wraps an arm around his wife and Pema smiles as she cuddles the baby and Korra kisses him in answer to his unspoken question, he thinks that this is more than he ever wanted. And he loves it.

Review, lovelies! It feeds my soul.


	2. Ancient

Slight season 1 AU; hints of Makorra.

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They'd lost sight of Korra not long after the battle started. Even with Tenzin and the entire metalbending corps, even with his firebending and Bolin's earthbending and Asami's stolen glove, the mass of Equalists (they seemed to be led by the Lieutenant; Amon was nowhere to be seen) armed with chiblocking and shock-gloves managed to separate them from each other, and Korra was nowhere in sight. The residents of the neighborhood had long since fled, or else buried themselves underground if they couldn't run and knew a bender (this particular district of Dragon Flats held mainly people of Earth Kingdom descent).

Tenzin spun and thrust out his arms, sending a particularly persistent Equalist sprawling away from a dazed metalbender. Bolin and Chief Beifong raised a section of road into the air and crumbled it into dust beneath their opponents' feet. Mako let out a burst of lightning, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Asami echo him as she brought down a chiblocker. But it wasn't enough; they were being overrun. And there was still no sign of Korra.

No sooner did he think that than there was a tremendous quake from up the street, where the mob of nonbenders was thickest. A nearby building seemed to collapse in on itself with a roar, but through the dust Mako could see licks of dispersing flame. _Korra. _"Korra!" he yelled, and his allies turned towards the rubble.

He wanted more than anything to rush over, to pull away the dust and stones that he knew were burying her alive. But Bolin fixed him with a look as he hurled boulders at a pair of Equalists, and Mako remembered himself. If he rushed over without thinking, he would be overcome for certain. They'd be down a fighter, which meant they might lose, and then Korra would have no one to help her anyway. He turned away from the ruined building and blasted fire as a nonbender approached, her shock-glove crackling. Korra would just have to take care of herself, or wait.

He'd spoken too soon. The ground rumbled again, and a beam of blue-tinted light shot skyward from the rubble. And within that halo of light floated Korra, eyes narrowed but glowing the same color as the light. Korra swiped her hand in an arc, pulling a water whip from a broken pipe and slicing through the crowd beneath her. She didn't stop at that, next punching out and sending flames into the chaos. The Equalists couldn't touch her; she made no contact with the ground.

Korra hadn't mastered airbending yet, hadn't produced more than a feeble breeze; and that after an hour of meditation. She couldn't be called an airbender in any sense of the term. Yet here she was, floating easily fifteen feet above street level and sending Equalists flying with flame and wind and water. And it dawned on Mako that this wasn't Korra at all. This was the Avatar. This was thousands upon thousands of her past lives, all of whom had mastered air and each element in turn.

From the day he'd met her, he'd known who Korra was, and he'd accepted it. At least, he'd accepted the bending-four-elements part. He hadn't been prepared to see her like this, all glowing eyes and rage. There was a hidden side to Korra, an ancient, almost alien side. He knew it existed, of course. He just hadn't wanted to experience it, not like this. And then the Avatar spoke, and everyone, chiblockers and benders alike, froze in place. "**WHO DARES!**"The voice was eerie and echoing, like many hundreds of people speaking at once. "**WHO DARES TO MOVE AGAINST US!**" The wind began to pick up around them. A few Equalists turned and fled; the Lieutenant craned his head up and took a single step back.

The Avatar made another slashing motion, and rock ripped up from the street. Pools of water began to tremble, and Mako thought he saw flickers of flame wisp out of the Avatar's mouth as she—as they—spoke again. "**YOU WHO HAVE GONE AGAINST THE WILL OF THE AVATAR...YOU SHALL PAY.**" And the Avatar attacked, sending shards of ice raining down. The remaining Equalists bolted. Mako and the others were quick to take cover behind a few downed Satomobiles, out of sight. With no one to mete out revenge upon, the Avatar turned her (their) wrath to the surrounding buildings.

As the wind howled, Tenzin shouted, "She's out of control! We have to calm her down!" Mako squinted up at the hovering form and realized he was right. Although the Avatar State unlocked considerable power, it seemed also to strip Korra of her sense of self-preservation. The buildings she struck at were becoming increasingly unstable, and if one of them were to collapse on top of her again…

Mako ran from the shelter of the car. "Korra!" he shouted, waving his arms. "Korra, listen to me! You have to snap out of it!"

The Avatar's head snapped around, like a predator scenting prey. A gale whipped towards him and almost knocked him off his feet, but Tenzin deflected it, and Mako took a step forward. "Korra! They're gone! It's okay!" Rocks this time, huge boulders half the size of Naga. Bolin and Chief Beifong leapt forward and cast them aside; Mako kept moving. "Korra!"

Water roared, knocking him into a building. His ribs screamed in pain; one of them was likely broken from the impact. But if he didn't stop Korra, she'd get herself killed or tear the city apart. Probably she'd do both. He got up, fell, got up again. And fire lanced down at his face, hot as the sun itself. With a move like parting a curtain, Mako cast it aside. The Avatar was there, systematically laying into a fabric store. Korra's injuries from the collapsed building earlier seemed to be taking their toll; her hand was almost within reach. "Korra!" he yelled one last time, and grabbed for it but missed. He took her by the ankle instead, and started pulling her down towards him. If the stories he heard were true, Katara had done something similar to calm her husband, during the War.

It worked. The wind lessened, and Korra began dropping in height. He grasped her by the hand, then by the shoulder, still pulling. When her toes touched the ground, the glow faded and Korra's eyes closed as she collapsed into him.

The dust began to settle, and the others emerged. Tenzin touched his shoulder and took Korra from him as sirens started wailing. Mako looked around at the destruction. He knew there were two sides to Korra. There were parts of her that were brand new and parts that were antiques. If only they hadn't had to find out like this.

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Review! This will have a companion piece.


	3. Whispers

Season one AU; hints of Makorra. Companion to Ancient.

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Korra didn't know where her friends were, and she was terrified. The chi-blockers had ambushed them out of nowhere, it seemed. All they'd been doing was patrolling the streets of the city like they did every night; Tenzin had come along in this particular instance because "If you feel you must put yourselves and your friends in reckless danger just so you can become vigilantes, Korra, I won't stop you. But I want to see exactly what it is you're doing, at least once. "

Asami's police scanner had picked up on what they _thought_ was a minor conflict between bending Triads in the Earth District of Dragon Flats. Chief Beifong and a few of her metalbenders were already there when they arrived, and they were quick to discover that it was the farthest thing from a gang scuffle. It was an all-out war between Equalists and police, and the few residents not yet able to flee.

Korra leapt out of the car and went straight for the Lieutenant, who was methodically jabbing his kali sticks into whichever unfortunate metalbenders happened to pass by him. She didn't see Amon, at least not yet, so that was good. Korra planted her feet and pulled a fireball from the air, flinging it in the Lieutenant's direction. She followed with a swift back-stomp to raise a boulder from the road, and threw that too.

_Bad idea_, Korra thought. Her attack drew the attention of the Lieutenant and several dozen of his underlings, and they charged at her en masse. Behind her she could see Tenzin and her friends entering the fray, but the Equalists had already driven her too far up the street for them to help. She lobbed another few boulders, which made contact with two or three Equalists, but more replaced them. Korra threw fire and rock and water—a family of earthbenders had ruptured a pipe in their escape—but it was no use. There were too many of them.

It might've been different if she knew how to airbend, if she was a better Avatar. But the spirits hadn't seen fit to gift her with the skills Aang had had. Korra looked around frantically. There wasn't much earth left that she hadn't already torn up into rubble, and she couldn't use fire forever; she was already tiring. The chiblockers advanced, backing her up into a doorway and away from her water source.

_Maybe…_ She glanced up at the stone archway. It was a reckless, stupid move, Korra knew that, but she was desperate. There was no one near enough to help her; she'd seen as much before her view was obscured. It seemed like half the city had shown up to fight against the police force. She steeled her nerves and punched out with all the flame she could muster, driving the Equalists back long enough for her to anchor her stance and slam her hands _out _and _forward _against the walls of the archway.

The rumble that followed seemed to herald the end of the world. The building shuddered, groaned, and started falling forward onto the street. Equalists shouted and ran and cursed the Avatar to Koh's lair, but all Korra was concerned with in that moment was keeping herself from being squashed like a bug; she only hoped that none of her allies were in the path of the falling building. It was lucky she'd been pushed into the archway, Korra mused, suddenly calm amid the chaos. As long as she stayed here and held the arch steady with her bending, the rest of the structure should theoretically fall around her and leave her without a scratch.

She shouldn't have tempted fate with that thought. As great shards of rock rained down around her, Korra felt something give within the archway, like the pebble that starts the avalanche. A crack appeared in the ceiling overhead, and that was all the warning she got before the arch crumbled on top of her in a rush of dust and stone. In the split second before it engulfed her, she heard someone yell her name.

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Korra was no stranger to odd dreams. It was a well-known fact that sleep blurred the line between the Spirit World and the physical world, and on top of that she was the Avatar; she had a hundred hundred reincarnations stored up in her past. She'd been having flashbacks of lives that weren't hers and people she'd never known, places she'd never visited, since she was six. But this dream was different. She was floating above the scene, seeing through her own eyes, rather than interacting (as Aang or Roku or a life she didn't know; she never dreamed as herself in these cases) directly with the scene herself. It didn't seem to be one of Aang's memories—she saw Tenzin and Lin as they were now, not the younger versions of themselves that her predecessor had known. And—why were there chiblockers down there, scattering like rat-cockroaches when the light's turned on? Moreover, why couldn't she feel herself moving?

It dawned on Korra that this was no dream. The Equalist attack, being cornered, the collapsing building—the solution came to her in a rush. She was in the Avatar state. She'd finally unlocked it. But something seemed…off. Master Katara had told her a dozen-odd stories as a child, passed on from Aang's descriptions about the Avatar state and how it looked, how it felt. And her tales had never, not once, made mention of a paralysis like this.

Korra became aware of a low hiss, like many someones whispering across the room. She concentrated on it, and it solidified into an almost eerie murmur, voices echoing and overlapping each other. "_Defied us…Defied their Avatar…Disrespect…Blasphemy. Destroy them…destroy them all."_ Korra felt an inexplicable sense of rage growing in her. Her past lives—or perhaps the Avatar Spirit itself—were in control of her…and they were angry. "_Kill them…"_

Korra's blood turned cold in her veins. "NO!" she screamed at the voices. "No, you _can't_! I won't let you!" She sensed the Presence behind the voices turn its attention to her, and it was like being smothered in a blanket, or trapped behind glass. She couldn't see anything, say anything. She barely remembered her name.

Out of the emptiness there was abruptly a voice, calling her name. _Korra, Korra._ It was vaguely familiar, and suddenly she recognized it as Mako's. _Korra, listen…snap out of it…Korra…_ She pushed against the blanket, and suddenly she could see again. But what she saw was horrible. The Equalists were fleeing, dragging their wounded comrades with them. There wasn't a soul in sight…except for Mako. He was making his way towards her, slowly, fighting wind and water and boulders the size of cars.

Korra watched her arm fling out and cast a literal wave of fire at his head, which he barely deflected. She screamed at the Avatars, at whatever was controlling her to _stop_. And suddenly she could feel something again. The Presence made her look down—Mako had a hand around her ankle, and he was pulling her to the ground. The physical contact was apparently weakening the hold the Presence had on her body; she could feel the wind around her slowing, feel herself being tugged by ankle and hand and elbow. And Korra _pushed_.

Just like with the archway, she began to feel cracks appear in the glass. Her feet touched the destroyed street, and in the next instant she was free of the whispers. Free, and exhausted, and with her side screaming in pain. She let herself crumple against Mako as sirens started wailing. And then, there was only darkness.

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The response to this series has been great, guys-thank you! Don't forget to review, though-I've had almost two hundred hits and only three gave feedback. I know you can do better than that!


	4. Circumstance

A late fic for Halloween. Background Makorra and Bosami, but mostly the airbabies.

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She just wouldn't stop _talking_. Mako didn't know how Pema dealt with her younger daughter's exuberance all day—small wonder that the woman was going grey at 35. Maybe it was partially due to her exhaustion looking after Ikki that Pema had fallen ill last night, and didn't feel well enough to take her children guising.

"I feel so horrible asking you to do this, but the other Acolytes are all in meditation for Spirits-Day or out in the city with their own little ones, and Tenzin has an evening meeting with the council; the children were so excited to go out tonight and I just feel so under the weather today. Would any of you take them for me?"

She looked at each of them in turn (Korra, Mako, Bolin and Asami); Bolin took one look at Ikki and Meelo (who was dressed as a fire ferret as per his new fascination with Pabu) giggling as they hung upside down from the ceiling, and took a step back.

"Pema, Asami and I would _love_ to help you, but we already have dinner reservations for Kuang's that we can't break." Asami looked at her boyfriend in confusion; before she could say anything he'd pulled her away from the risky situation and begun to walk hastily towards the docks.

"Traitor," Mako muttered under his breath as Pema refocused her attention on him and Korra, who quickly assured the woman that they'd "take care of everything, Pema. Get better."

"YAY!" Ikki screeched, dropping from the ceiling like the monkey-bat she was dressed as. Mako just groaned.

* * *

And so here he was, roped into babysitting an infant, two monkey-squirrels, and their older sister. Jinora at least was calmer, and she was helping to rein in Meelo's antics at least. Ikki, however, was a different story. She chattered on about her costume and her siblings' costumes and all the candy they were getting and wow it sure is dark out Korra _Korra_ why is it dark at night where does the sun go? If this was what she was like normally, he dreaded what would happen when she actually started eating the sweets.

Korra, it seemed, was in her element tonight, ushering the little airbenders from house to house like koala sheep. She'd dressed up as Naga, all decked out in the bison-shed fur that the Acolytes used to weave their clothes and blankets. She smirked at Mako from under her dog-mask. "You know your probending uniform doesn't count as a costume, Hot Stuff." Rohan burbled as if in agreement from the sling on Korra's hip, and she straightened his little lemur-eared cap with a smile.

Mako raised his hands in mock-self-defense. "Hey, it's not like—Meelo, don't eat people's flowers!—not exactly like I grew up celebrating Spirits Night. Not since before…before." He grew quiet, and Korra looked away.

"The White Lotus made me stop doing it—dressing up, I mean, there weren't any houses to go guising at down there—when I was ten," Korra said after a while, watching Jinora's short, spangled dress flutter in the breeze as she herded her siblings to another house. "They claimed that "frivolous celebrations" weren't conducive to my Avatar training, and I guess after that I kind of outgrew the whole thing."

Mako hmm'ed noncommittally. "So why'd you volunteer us to take the kids out, then? If you don't celebrate the holiday anymore."

"Oh, mostly as a favor to Pema. She and Tenzin've been almost like second parents to me since I came here, and I wanted to repay them somehow. And besides that, I suppose I'm making up for lost time." He looks at her then, really _looks_, and behind her blue twinkle he can see the child who never had the chance to be a child, who never really had parents, who was offered up to the selfish world simply by the circumstance of her birth.

Reflecting back at him, too, is the gold-eyed child of fire who did have that chance but lost it, who had a childhood and parents and who got to eat fireflakes on special occasions. The child who had to take over as parent to his little brother, simply so they could survive in a city that didn't care about them. In the long run he and Korra aren't that different, and as Mako smiles against the peck on the cheek Korra gives him he supposes that's what draws them to each other.

But still he wonders—is it better to have lived and lost, or to have never lived at all?

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Halloween, or Spirits Night, in this ficverse draws from our Halloween, All Saints Day, and the Spanish Dia de los Muertos; guising is another term for trick-or-treating. For the curious, Jinora is dressed as a flapper.

Review!


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